Alder cones, peat balls, leaves

Hi all. Been a while.

I'm in the process of a re-design and I'm setting up an amazon biotope (but with a couple of galaxy's ) aquarium. It's a 180 litre job with an internal filter- Fluval U4. I'm taking the carbon pads out, and replacing with polywool so as to keep the water dark, and I have LOADS of wood in there, but its all well leached, so I need to 'brown up' a bit.

I've been looking and the cheapest way I can find to do this is with alder cones or peat balls. Does anyone use them? How many should I use in my tank, and how often should they be replaced?

Any other advice/ideas greatly appreciated.

I've not used them myself but this link HERE tells you how many cones/balls to use there is also a link to Youtube showing more about them.

Thanks....Problem is, all that info is from the people selling them....Is there anyone else who uses them?

I use peat.

Before you add any, I would test your water. You need to think of the color as a side effect as the fish really don't care about that. The peat can change your ph but it will not soften your water like the website claims.

it softened my water a bit, but thats cos my water was hard as railroad spikes.

Took it out when i went RO water though. My pH sits at 6.5 now, with peat it would be less than 6